What kind of pickup line does a college recruiter throw at a top prospect?

What are high schoolers looking for in a college and a coach? Sporting News surveyed 102 prospects in the class of 2013—all of them with at least four BCS-level scholarship offers, 30 of whom appear in the Sporting News 125—to get answers to those questions and more. We wanted to get a feel for what goes through the mind of a big-time recruit as well as what he deals with daily.

What did we learn?

A slick-talking recruiter might work with some players, but others are very much turned off by that tactic. Some observers might be cynical about how interested a high school kid truly is in a school’s academic reputation, but prospects mentioned its importance repeatedly. Sure, playing early, getting a shot at the NFL and winning matter, but other things do, too.

And as far as the coaches go, some of the rumors are true: They’re not above bending the rules, and some of them will say anything to land a prized prospect.

Note: Not every recruit answered every question.

1. Did most recruiters go through your high school coach to contact you? Or did they come straight to you?

Answers

Went through my high school coach: 55

Came straight to me: 38

Half and half: 2

Survey says

— “My coach played in the NFL and in college and sort of knows the game, so he handles all that.”

— “My coach would be really ticked off if they went around him, so I think they know to call him first.”

— “My coach sets up most of it through his office, and he’ll bring us in.”

— “Most of them go through Facebook even more than my phone or whatever. I get lots of Facebook messages from coaches.”

— “I get messages from them on Twitter. I don’t know if they even talk to my coach. I don’t think so.”

2. If you were granted one extra official visit and you could take it to any school you wanted—whether it had offered you a scholarship or not—where would you go?

Answers

Oregon: 17

Hawaii, USC: 11

Stanford: 6

Alabama, Miami: 5

Notre Dame: 4

LSU, Ohio State, UCLA: 3

Arizona State, Clemson, Florida, Michigan, Oklahoma State, Texas: 2

Survey says

— “I just think Oregon is cool with all the Nike stuff.”

— “I’m just curious about Oregon. I like how they play, and I like their stadium.”

— “I don’t know much about Hawaii’s football team. I think they were good a few years ago, but I’d really like to see those dancers they have.”

— “USC is still USC. At least to me they are.”

— “If you’re going to go on a visit, why not see the national champs? They haven’t offered me, though.”

3. When coaches try to sell you on their school, what do they generally mention first, academics or how many players they’ve sent to the NFL?

Answers

Academics: 54

How many players they’ve sent to the NFL: 20

Both equally: 11

Depends on the school: 5

Depends on the conference: 1

Survey says

— “I know everybody thinks that the school part doesn’t matter, but it matters to me a lot, and I think the coaches know that—because they always mention academics.”

— “A bunch of coaches talk about the NFL first, and I just tune them out. I already know which players from their school went to the NFL.”

— “I think it says a lot about the coaching staff when they produce NFL players, so I’m glad they tell me about that.”

— “I think it depends on the conference. Like, the Big Ten coaches I’ve dealt with talk about the academics, but most of the SEC coaches I’ve talked to bring up the NFL.”

4. Would you rather be recruited by a father figure or a “cool best friend” type of guy?

Answers

Father figure: 40

Cool best friend: 31

A coach who could be a little bit of both: 16

It doesn’t matter if it’s a school I want to go to: 3

I’d want to have one of each type on the staff: 2

Someone who will be honest and be himself, whether it’s a father figure or a friend: 2

Someone more like a cool uncle: 2

Survey says

— “I want a role model. I know that once you sign, your relationships with those coaches will change. I want a genuine good man coaching me, and I feel like you find that in a father figure. If you want the best friend, you’ll

have him until you report that June.”

— “That ‘bro’ thing gets old really quickly.”

— “Most successful players have a coach who is more of a father figure, doing and saying things that the player may not like but is more beneficial to the player in the long run. That’s the type of coach I would rather have.”

— “You don’t learn from a friend what you can learn from a father.”

— “A football team is looked upon as a family, and since he is the head coach, he should be the father of that community.”

— “I have my father here already to help me make choices. It’s nice having someone you can give a call to and talk about things other than football.”

— “There are so many people always trying to tell me what to do and giving me advice. I would rather have a recruiter who is kind of there for me.”

— “I just want him to be honest. What he wants to be is on him.”

5. What line from a recruiter most made you want to roll your eyes?

— “Having a recruiter tell you that you can start immediately if you come there. That line is the key for you to cut them (off your list).”

— “They told me I’m absolutely starting my freshman year, even though I know that most offensive linemen like me need a year to develop.”

— “‘You will become a freshman All-American if you come here.’”

— “A recruiter told me that I was good enough to skip college and go straight to the NFL. I laughed in his face.”

— “One coach told me he could guarantee me an NFL contract.”

— “They’d help me make an NFL movie and I could star if I’d want to after I graduate from the school. I mean … come on, man.”

— “‘Come on up here and we can make you a bigger celebrity than you already are around town. Coach has HBO and all kinds of TV networks on campus a lot.’”

— “‘As a tight end, you will catch over 100 passes in a season.’ I mean, I’m all for receptions … but over 100 is a little crazy.”

— “Everybody in the Pac-12 says they are going to win the Rose Bowl. Last I checked, only one team can.”

— “One coach told me that every dorm room had flat-screen TVs.”

— “I love it when a low-caliber school tells you that you’ll win a national championship when you’re there.”

— “’There are some nice women at our school.’”

— “They said I would be the face of the program … as a defensive lineman.”

— “When one school finally offered me, after I had already been offered by 30 other schools, they told me that I had always been their biggest target.”

— “One coach told me that they have alligators crawling on the field around them during practice.”

— “Illinois told me that they were looking for a taller, lankier tackle and that while they loved what they saw, they weren’t all that interested. The next week I got my Mizzou offer, and the next day Illinois wanted to set up a visit.”

— “I’ve been lied to by multiple schools telling me their business school is the best in the nation, and that it was recently ranked No. 1.”

6. Do you like the signing day “hat dance,” when a recruit puts a half-dozen hats in front of him and pulls one from the group to indicate his choice?

Answers

No: 59

Yes: 40

Survey says

— “I think it is stupid. The kids lead on three or four other schools and take opportunities away from other players.”

— “I’m kind of mixed on it. I see why they do it, because it’s a fun experience, but the school is basically giving you a $200,000 scholarship to play a sport you love and get a free education, so I say you need to give respect to the schools and be honest where you are going to go.”

— “It’s ridiculous. Make a decision and stick with it. Keeping coaches and other recruits on edge leaves the other program scrambling to fill a spot that they believed they already had. If they are doing that type of crap, they are the ones that are creating and keeping that drama going that stereotypes athletes.”

— “I hate it. It shows that the recruit didn’t put enough thought into where he was going for the next four years of his life and the recruit is either indecisive or looking for attention.”

— “I think it is ridiculous. I think it is too self-aggrandizing, especially when you are going to be back at the bottom of the depth chart when you report to fall camp.”

— “I feel like when the players do the hat dance, they are soaking up all the attention and media spotlight that they can, because for some of them they are at the pinnacle of superstardom in their life and they want to live it up. I don’t blame them for that.”

— “I like it, but not when they pick up a hat and then are like, ‘Naaah’ and throw it behind them and pick up another hat instead.”

— “I like it because it keeps the colleges wondering.”

— “I don’t mind it, as long as they respect the schools. As long as they don’t pick one hat, throw it and then pick another. It’s a neat tradition that, if done correctly, can be a fun part of recruiting.”

— “I think it’s cool, but sometimes looks immature with the recruit. It would be cool to be able to do it, but I wouldn’t want it televised.”

7. An athlete can call a coach as many times as he wants, but there are restrictions on how often a coach can call a player. To get around this, some coaches practice “phantom calling,” where they call a recruit and hang up the phone to indicate the player should call him back. Have you ever gotten a phantom call?

Answers

No: 67

Yes: 30

Survey says

— “Yeah, when it first happened from one coach, I thought he had just accidentally pocket dialed me. Now, I’m pretty used to it.”

— “I didn’t understand it at first, but then I heard that if they call your phone but it doesn’t connect, it doesn’t count as one of their calls to you, but you know they called you because of caller I.D. It’s pretty smart.”